


an exercise in self-restraint

by annagarny



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annagarny/pseuds/annagarny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>time limited and with an alphabetical playlist selected by Husband, I went ahead and wrote 25 Clint/Phil drabbles.</p>
<p>Enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an exercise in self-restraint

**Addicted to Love - Florence & The Machine cover of Robert Palmer**

Clint hates that he loves this so much, but it's like an addiction. He can't get enough of the sensations, his eyes wide, fingertips raw and his throat aching.

It's a craving as if for a drug, and as Phil leans back, in jeans and a t-shirt, exposing a thin strip of pale stomach it's all Clint can do not to reach over and ghost his fingers along the line.

He used to think that he was immune to this kind of brain-melting vacancy in the presence of anyone, but Phil was the worst kind of addiction, because as much as Clint craved him, it seemed that Phil could take it or leave it.

Clint really was screwed.

 

 

**All That I Am - Rob Thomas**

Seeing the look in Phil's eyes as he turned away was what broke him, destroyed what little humanity Clint thought he had left.

It was the barest hint of hope that Phil could restore that humanity, that vanity and blind faith that had Clint dragging his exhausted body through five feet of snow to Phil's door. 

Phil caught him as he opened the door, his arms around the archer, their breathing labored but in tandem as they stood there, Clint looked up and the faintest smile ghosted across his lips.

"I can't save you from yourself, Clint."

"I need you to try. Can you try?"

Phil nodded, recognizing that this was all Clint had, and tugged him across the threshold.

 

 

**Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis**

Literally everyone objected.

Clint didn't get what the big deal was, he'd dated Natasha for ages and nobody had cared about that, but now that it was Phil he was sleeping with, suddenly everyone had an opinion and they were all negative.

So, Clint found himself assigned to Sitwell, and Phil was relocated to Malibu to deal with Stark Industries at its' headquarters.

It lasted all of two weeks before Phil pulled one of the most intricate, delicate and sneaky moves in his arsenal, and the two met up in Chicago. 

After seeing the video footage of the reunion, even Fury admitted that there was no good reason to keep them apart.

 

 

**Breathe - Michelle Branch**

Phil had told Clint that he needed some time, some space, and had taken the Acura for a drive. Not two minutes after he'd left the parking garage the skies had opened and Phil had turned off the stereo in favour of listening to the rain on the roof.

An hour later, somewhere in New Jersey, he came to a stop at a deserted picnic ground, leaning forward and resting his head on the steering wheel, listening to the sound of the rain and his own, ragged, breathing.

He got out of the car and stepped into the storm, sat on the hood and tried to pretend that all the water running down his cheeks was the rain. 

The sound of a motorcycle pulling up a few minutes later made him turn his head, and he didn't bother to try and wipe his eyes, he was soaked to the skin already, there was no point.

Clint dismounted, slowly, his movements stiff and awkward, telling of the fact that he hadn't taken the bike out in a while. He approached Phil with the same hesitance, hair plastered to his head by the downpour, shivering in his too-thin coat.

"I'm sorry, Phil."

"I know. I just need... I need something you can't give me."

"Can I try?"

"What?"

"Can you let me try?"

 

 

**Bright Lights - Matchbox Twenty**

They didn't spend much time apart, really. Between missions where Phil was his handler and briefings where Clint didn't want to do his paperwork, even before they started sleeping together they were practically joined at the hip.

It also meant that when they were separated, each talked about the other constantly. Natasha knew about the picture of Clint in the drawer of Phil's bedside table, in his apartment in the city.

Each felt the absence of the other like a missing limb, but when Clint wanted to leave SHIELD and try something else, try being normal, Phil let him go. 

All that he could hope for was that when the city had chewed him up and spit him out, he'd have the sense to come back home. 

He didn't want another scar to not talk about.

 

 

**Bubbly - Colbie Caillat**

Clint had been dozing, head pillowed in Phil's lap, for a while now. He crinkled his nose and sneezed, waking himself up.

"It's raining." he mumbled, voice sleep-rough and gravelly.

"Yes, keen observation, that." Phil countered, tugging the blanket off the back of the couch and draping it over Clint's bare legs.

"Mmm warm." Clint rolled over and pressed his face into Phil's stomach, curling his feet up so that his toes were under the blanket, too, smiling as Phil's hand drifted down from where it had been holding his tablet, absently carding through Clint's hair as he continued to read, tucking the blanket around Clint's shoulders and rubbing slow, soothing circles, lulling his archer back into sleep, snuggled up safe and warm while the storm raged outside.

Phil smiled to himself, content.

 

 

**Can't Stop - MoZella**

Phil took a measured mouthful of the red wine, relishing the full-bodied taste of it for a few moments before swallowing it with a contented sigh.

"I don't know how you drink that stuff." Clint told him, sipping his own Jack Daniels and rolling his eyes a little.

"It's all about the aftertaste. It lingers."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, it does."

"Huh."

"Here. Try some."

"No, I've never liked red wine."

"Maybe you didn't taste it right."

"What do you mean."

"Come here."

Clint leaned over, he couldn't stop himself when it came to Phil, and set his own glass down as he scooted closer.

"Okay, I'm here. Now what."

"Trust me."

"Oh, I do."

"Good." Phil took another sip of the wine, but this time he leaned over to Clint and pressed their mouths together, flesh and wine mingling on his tongue, a tiny dribble escaping and running down Clint's chin and neck.

Clint swallowed, almost involuntarily, and the wine was gone.

"Yeah, I think I was doing it wrong, if that's doing it right."

 

 

**Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol**

Phil was flat on his back on the roof, staring up at the stars. It was close to three AM and the city was surprisingly quiet. He rolled his head slightly and his eyes met Clint's, crinkled slightly as he smiled, and then he turned his gaze back to the heavens.

They were both there, both in jeans and sweaters, laid on the concrete that was still warm from the long, hot day and night that they had just worked through. They weren't quite touching, but Clint could feel the warmth radiating from Phil's hand where it was resting on the floor next to his.

As they stared at the stars, the sounds of the city seemed to fade away and slowly, achingly slowly, they forgot the existence of the rest of the world. Phil moved his hand, just a little, and the tip of his pinkie finger touched the edge of Clint's hand, sending a jolt through them both. Clint twisted his hand and caught Phil's fingers between his, running his thumb across their knuckles.

Neither looked away from the stars.

 

 

**Closer - Nine Inch Nails**

Clint's eyes were dark as he looked up at his handler. Phil had him handcuffed and naked but for black briefs, on his knees in one of the interrogation cells.

This hadn't been part of the plan, initially. Then again, when it came to SHIELD, not a lot went according to plan. Phil was ignoring him, pointedly, sat on the lone chair in the room, legs crossed above the knee and immaculate in his Dolce suit, while Clint was filthy, having been dragged through a section of Central Park by one ankle as part of what was supposedly a training exercise. It was supposed to be a simple point-and-shoot, get 100% on his accuracy statistic sheet then go home and have victory sex with his partner of almost three years.

It had taken Clint a lot longer than it should have to realize that the training had been interrupted by Victor Von Doom and that the robot clutching his ankle wasn't actually Stark-tech.

Of course, he'd disentangled himself from the Doom-Bot with relative ease, the new incendiary arrows that Stark had designed were good for something, but his vest and pants were beyond saving. His bow had been fine, but he'd actually plunged the arrow into the neck of the robot by hand, it had simply been easier.

"You almost allowed yourself to be captured by Doom." Phil finally said, still not looking at him.

"No, you fuckers let a DoomBot get into the training course." 

"Go and clean yourself up, Specialist."

"Uh, handcuffs?"

"Don't act like you didn't have them unlocked less than a minute after you got in here."

Clint just rolled his eyes and dropped the shackles to the concrete between his feet.

Phil got to his feet, stepped over and leaned down, pressing his mouth to Clint's ear and speaking so low that Clint had to strain to make out the words.

"I am going to do unspeakable things to you for this, Specialist."

"Yes, sir."

 

 

**Constant Craving - k.d. Lang**

They weren't often separated. Not just because no other agent could handle Hawkeye's snark and sarcasm over the comms, but because they worked well together. They barely needed fifteen words each to communicate anything, could read the others' most minute facial expressions and trusted each other implicitly.

That, and when they were separated, the anxiety almost killed each of them. Natasha called it pining, Tony called it pathetic and Steve thought it was romantic.

Fury called it a distraction that nobody could afford, and did his best to make sure that they were always on the same operational roster. There were certain advantages to this arrangement, least of which was a lack of incident reports with purple highlighter all over them coming from Sitwell and Hill. 

 

 

**Crazy Dreams - Carrie Underwood**

For the longest time, Clint thought that everything in his life was nothing but an hallucination he was enduring, and that one day he was going to wake up and find out that some accident at the circus had put him into a coma - he'd been hit in the head by something large and heavy and was now a John Doe in some random hospital in the mid-west.

There was no way this could be real. He clung onto every moment, writing things down, taking photos, using sarcasm like a weapon because at any moment it was all going to slip away and turn out to be fake.

The bad days came with the good, and on the bad days he was less convinced that this was all just a crazy dream, but the good days were concerning.

When he finally let himself believe in it all, the next insane thing happened. He was in a car, well, a SHIELD SUV, in the passenger seat playing air-drums on the dashboard when a man slid into the drivers' seat and introduced himself as 'Agent Coulson, your new handler.'

Yep, this had to be a dream, because men like this did not just walk into Clint Barton's life. Not without serious consequences.

 

 

**Dangerous - Roxette**

A big part of Clint's appeal, and if you ever ask Phil about this he will deny it so vehemently that you'll start to doubt your own existence, is the sense of danger that seems to follow him everywhere.

Clint takes stupid risks. He does things like choosing a compound bow rather than a sniper rifle when he's been ordered to get up high with a gun. He jumps off buildings armed with nothing but a prototype grappling hook arrow that may not even be securely attached to his belt. 

He grabs his handler in the middle of a firefight and kisses him with a fiery passion that ignites something inside Phil that he hadn't even known existed until that moment.

It was the sense of mild terror more than anything that made Phil pursue the nameless feeling that Clint had awoken within him, and to this day he's still feeling the searing heat inside his soul.

 

 

**Daughters - John Mayer**

Phil is forty-four and Clint thirty-six when she arrives in their lives, both parents killed by an explosion intended to kill Hawkeye and the Black Widow. Clint heard the cries coming from beneath the rubble and emerged holding a bundle of clothing, well, his field vest, really, wrapped around a tiny baby.

"Her mom... her mom was wrapped around her, protecting her from the blast. Her mom died protecting her."

"What's her name?"

"We have to find out."

Secretly, Phil immediately started calling the baby girl 'Hope'. 

'Hope' had no living relatives (the name on her birth certificate was Katie and she was four months old) and was on the brink of being put into the foster system, when Clint stopped everything in its' tracks, hugging the baby to his chest in such a protective movement that nobody dared to touch either of them.

"No. I'm, no, we are keeping her. I spent eight years in an orphanage, I'm not putting anyone else through that if I can help it."

"Barton-"

"I've already spoken to the social worker. Hope's staying with us."

Phil's heart broke a little as Clint's voice cracked on the 'us', because he wasn't sure if Clint meant the entire team or just them. 

"Phil and I have been thinking about adopting for a while, now. This is perfect."

Phil looked over the baby's head at Clint, and neither of them backed down.

 

 

**The Day You Went Away - Wendy Matthews**

Clint was sitting on the stoop of Tony Stark's brownstone, staring up at the clear blue sky, feeling like cursing it just for existing.

It had all been a pack of lies. There was nothing left, nothing to hold onto.

They had shouted, well, Phil had shouted. Clint had pretended to be asleep.

It was all a waste of time.

Phil had packed his things, movements slow and methodical, then left the house, left SHIELD, left Clint behind.

Usually, the weather matched Clint's moods, but today the skies seemed determined to be bright and wonderful, on what felt like the worst day of his life.

Sure, his parents were dead, but his father had been a drunk who had beaten him and his brother up, while his mother had just let it happen.

Barney had left him behind, too. 

Phil had been the only good thing in Clint's life, and now he was gone, too. Sitting on a plane, no doubt, leaning back in his seat in a crisp suit, business class, flying away from Clint towards his new life.

Clint dropped his head between his knees and tried not to let his shoulders shake too much as the sobs tore themselves out of his throat.

 

 

**Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House**

Phil had somewhat eclectic taste in music. It ran the gamut from 30's swinging jazz that he and Steve had bonded over, to knowing half the words to the thrashing heavy metal Tony preferred to blast through his workshop while he was rebuilding the various things he'd broken.

Still, Clint found himself surprised when Phil was humming along with the Finn brothers on the radio.

"You really do like all music, don't you?" He'd asked, incredulous, as Phil's low tenor had harmonized with the radio.

"Hardly. I don't understand how anything that Rebecca Black produced was counted as music."

"Okay, fair point. But you seem to like everything else."

"Not necessarily, but I do keep an open mind, Barton."

 

 

**E.T. - Katy Perry**

They really were from vastly different worlds. Clint was from a family torn to pieces by alcohol, violence, lies and betrayals. He functioned perfectly well as a solo unit, until he found SHIELD he really hadn't planned on living or dying any other way.

Phil had been raised in a cocoon of loving relatives, his parents, now in their late seventies, were still alive, still married and still living in the house his father had bought when they'd gotten married, back in the sixties. All of Phil's brothers, all four of them, younger than him, were married. Two of them even had kids, and the entire mob descended on the house in upstate New York every Thanksgiving

The entire situation was so alien to Clint that he had no idea how to react, but somehow he managed to work through it, helped by the reassuring touches Phil seemed to know he needed, it was almost supernatural, his ability to pick up on when Clint needed him.

 

 

**Easy Silence - Dixie Chicks**

Their lives were a complete whirlwind, sometimes. Briefings, assignments in remote parts of the world, phone calls, paperwork, shouting... it all added up.

They found refuge in each other. 

Sure, if Clint found his mind buzzing with over-stimulation he could find a quiet place at the range, shooting two hundred targets with pinpoint accuracy. 

But nothing compared to the solace he found in Phil, the way that his hands on Clint's skin kept the world at bay, created a soft, silent place where he could just rest, and not think about the world outside their tiny apartment just two blocks from Stark House. 

It was a peaceful quiet, beautiful in its' simplicity, they didn't have to talk, they could sit in silence for hours at time, forget the rest of the world existed and just be there, in each others' presence.

It was easier to go back into the chaos, sometimes, just knowing that the quiet place existed.

 

 

**Fireflies - Owl City**

"You've never seen fireflies?" Clint was certain that the look of utter disbelief on his face was very unattractive, but he really didn't care. This was important.

"Nope."

"You've been to how many countries, you live in the same house as a bunch of superheroes, including a demigod and a super-soldier from the forties, and you've never seen fireflies?"

"Never seen them. They're not native to the part of the world I grew up in."

"That's it. We're going for a drive when we have leave next, and you are experiencing fireflies."

Clint was true to his word. He may have even altered the duty rosters so that their next block of time off fell the very next week. He promptly grabbed both of their pre-packed go-bags, caught Phil by the hand and took them out of the city.

"Okay, so, this is pretty awesome."

"See, I told you." Clint leaned back on the blanket and just watched Phil's wide eyes as the bio-luminescent bugs swarmed around them.

 

 

**Here With Me - Dido**

Clint never slept well when he was alone. Not anymore.

He didn't admit it to anyone, but Phil noticed, Phil always noticed. 

None of Phil's things ever got moved, even if they were in the way, while he was out of the house. 

Clint had bags under his eyes this time, Phil had been gone for two weeks and Clint had managed maybe forty-eight hours of sleep, total, caught in two and three hour blocks, over those fourteen days. 

Phil walked into the apartment to find Clint, slumped on the sofa, wrapped up in one of Phil's sweaters, dozing.

"Hey, I'm home." Phil murmured, pressing his lips to Clint's temple.

"Home. Home is good."

"Come to bed." But it was too late. The moment Clint had heard Phil's voice, felt his lips touching his skin, all of the tension had seeped out of his body and he'd fallen into a deep, restful sleep.

Phil sighed, smiling, and leaned down, glad that he kept himself fit. He picked Clint up and carried him into their room, then slid into the bed behind him, sighing and dropping into sleep himself.

 

 

**Home - Michael Buble**

Stark House wasn't really home. SHIELD HQ certainly wasn't home

The tiny little apartment they had on 64th was home. 

Phil was at the apartment, sitting at the kitchen table, trying to finish some paperwork that couldn't be delegated, when his phone beeped, just once.

He snatched it up so fast that it seemed to leap out of his hands, he had to catch it from mid-air.

It was a text message, from Clint.

\--wish I was home--

\--me too--

\--there's seven million people in this city--

\--more than that here--

\--remind me why you aren't here--

\--because you needed to do this alone--

\--I know--

\--be safe--

\--I will--

\--I love you--

\--I love you--

 

 

**Hopelessly Addicted - The Corrs**

They'd known each other perhaps six months, and Phil had become Clint's handler almost exclusively for the last four of those months, after the smart-mouthed archer had alienated most of the other agents with his sarcasm and inability to follow orders promptly.

The change didn't really happen overnight, or maybe it had.

Clint found himself staring at Phil's lips as they ate breakfast in an IHoP on an off-ramp somewhere in Georgia, or maybe they’d made it to Alabama sometime the night before.

"You're staring, Barton."

"You missed a spot, shaving." Clint told him, and it was true, there was a cluster of dark stubble at the corner of Phil's mouth.

"So did you. In fact, I'd hazard that you forgot the entire razor."

"You love my stubble."

"You know it."

It was right about then that Clint Baron realized he was falling in love with Phil Coulson - not least because the man could match his dry sarcasm witticism-for-witticism, it was more the fact that Phil's next move was to lever the last of his bacon onto Clint's empty plate.

That was true love, right there.

 

 

**I'm the Only One - Melissa Etheridge**

Clint never considered that he might want anything other than Phil.

Phil never considered that either of them wanted anything other than each other.

Until, one day, Phil found himself looking, and seeing, and wanting something else.

The basis of their entire relationship was honesty, so Phil immediately told Clint what was going through his mind.

To his eternal shock, and partial horror, Clint told him the exact same things had been on his mind, and that he was scared witless. Their relationship was too much, too soon. It was overwhelming, and it was like nothing either had experienced, before.

So they stopped, for a while. Each explored the other avenue they had been eyeing, checking to see if the grass really was greener on the other side.

It only took eight days for them to come back to each other.

 

 

****

**Just Feel Better - Santana featuring Steven Tyler**

Clint was usually the one who got hurt.

In fact, Clint got injured so often that, at first, when the pair of them staggered into the medical wing all of the doctors and nurses automatically grabbed for him, not noticing that the blood on his hands didn’t belong to him. None of them saw that Phil was leaning against the wall, breathing laboured, a dribble of thick red blood sliding out the corner of his mouth and down his chin.

“No! You fuckers, Phil’s been shot, I’m fine, just let me go!”

Phil almost smiled at that, but another shot of pain ripped through him and he clutched the wound site, pressed his thumb just a little too hard to the frazzled nerve endings and his vision blacked out.

He came to, slowly, and found Clint unconscious on the narrow bed next to him, his hand on top of the bandages wrapped around Phil’s torso, thin lines around his eyes and mouth more pronounced, even in sleep. 

But it was okay, Phil felt fine, because Clint was still here.

 

 

**Last Kiss - Taylor Swift**

Neither of them planned any of it. 

Clint was, in fact, very careful never to plan ahead much further than the rest of the day. 

Phil was sitting on the floor of his apartment, leaning his head back on the couch and ignoring the hot tears that escaped the corner of his eyes, turning to ice water as they reached his neck.

Clint had left. He was gone and he’d told Phil that he wasn’t coming back. Phil had caught his hand and tugged him back, catching Clint by the nape of his neck and kissing him, trying to communicate just how much this was hurting him, interrupting Clint’s rehearsed-sounding speech about not being right for each other, needing space.

Clint had extricated his fingers from Phil’s grip and it had taken everything Phil had not to drop to his knees in the front hallway and beg, plead, entreaty, demand that Clint not turn and leave.

The door closed with an ominous click, a firing pin inside Phil’s mind.

He’d walked back through the apartment like a zombie, and found, on the arm of the couch, a small pile of laundry, waiting to be sent out. 

Clint’s Ramones t-shirt was there, tossed carelessly on top of the pile, and Phil picked it up, pressing the cotton to his face and inhaling deeply, before tugging it over his head and sliding to the floor, and no matter how tight he clenched his jaw, squeezed his eyes shut, he couldn’t deny that Clint was gone, for good, this time.

 

 

**Lego House - Ed Sheerhan**

****

Everything was always temporary. 

When things went wrong, everything was torn down and rebuilt, repurposed. 

Each found a constant in the other that they hadn’t realised was missing until they slotted into place, in the middle of a cold, dark December night, in a random safe-house somewhere in Maine, of all places. There was four feet of snow on the ground, and the only way to keep hypothermia at bay was to wrap themselves in the blankets and quilt, pressed together.

They’d both been in situations like this before, sharing body heat to maintain their cover, but this time it was somehow different. 

It went unsaid, but when Clint opened his eyes and found Phil looking down at him with a half-smile, he reciprocated, then pressed his face into his handlers’ chest, and drifted back to a safe, sheltered sleep.


End file.
